Three Little Words
by Kerichi
Summary: Three little words had the power to unleash bad memories, and maybe the start of something good.
1. Three Little Words

Freedom in a prison yard. Daryl smiled at the irony and continued to scan the fence line from his vantage point on top of an overturned bus. Here and there, walkers pressed against chain link like hungry kids against a candy store window. If the group wasn't low on ammunition, he'd climb down and put a bullet in brain of every one of those dumb dead assholes.

The smell of smoke drew his eyes to the campfire in the middle of the grassy field. They'd been on the run for so long, barely sleeping, communicating in whispers because sound attracted walkers. Part of him wanted to relax with the others. Enjoy the moment.

But he couldn't. He needed the distance.

Survivalists were loners. They looked out for number one. Merle had taught him that, and Daryl would bet his last arrow that wherever his brother was, he wasn't protecting women and children or skipping meals so others could eat.

_That's 'cause I ain't playin' errand boy to a bunch of pansy-asses. _He could almost hear his brother's voice.

"Shut up," Daryl muttered. He lifted his crossbow and peered through the sight. The closest walker was too far away to hit, even if he could miraculously shoot through one of the holes in the chain link. He aimed for practice.

Rick walked by on another perimeter check.

Daryl called out, "Yo, fearless leader, you gonna do that 'til you fall down or what?"

"I'll rest when I'm sure there's no breach in our defenses." Rick shook his head. "You're one to talk. Why are you still on watch?"

"It's a good place to see the sunset."

"And get away from people?" Rick looked toward the group.

Was he thinking of his wife, pregnant with another man's baby? "That's a bonus," Daryl said.

Rick laughed shortly. "Yeah, it is." He walked on.

Darkness fell and Daryl continued to pace back and forth, restless in mind more than body. He'd let Rick believe he was avoiding all the others, but there was one person whose company he wouldn't mind. Someone he felt comfortable with—maybe too comfortable.

He glanced over at the campfire. As if his thoughts prompted action, a slim figure rose to her feet and headed his way.

Carol.

No one else kept after him to eat, or rest. At first he'd thought Sophia's death had left her with the need to fuss over somebody, anybody. That theory didn't last the winter. Carol had worked through her grief to become stronger. Bolder. And the way she looked at him wasn't motherly.

He gave her a hand up when she reached the bus. As he'd figured, she'd brought food. The leftover owl meat tasted stringier than he remembered. He made a crack and got a laugh, even as Carol scolded him. When she admitted the rifle's kickback had hurt, he didn't hesitate to massage her shoulder.

Then she turned her head and smiled.

He was suddenly aware of the delicacy and softness of her body compared to his, how good it felt to touch her. Carol giggled nervously, and he was transported back to the days when girls used to hand him notes that said: I like you. Do you like me? Check yes or no.

Daryl experienced the same paralyzing combination of awkwardness and desire. "Better get back."

Carol continued to smile. "Could be romantic." She gave him a playful look. "Wanna screw around?"

He froze. Three little words shouldn't have the power to unleash bad memories, but they did.

_The tip of Merle's buck knife jabbed into ten-year-old Daryl's throat when he hesitated to shoot his first deer. "You wanna screw around and make the family go hungry, you'll do it with a Columbian necktie, bitch." _

_A woman with sores on her face grabbed Daryl's arm in a bar. "Where's your brother? I need meth. Can you get it for me?" Her smile displayed blood-red gums and cracked teeth. "Wanna screw around?"_

Daryl started to climb off the bus. "I'll go down first."

Carol laughed. "Even better."

He set his jaw against the ghosts in his head. "Stop."

She kept quiet for maybe a minute. "Is it my hair? It seemed like a good idea. I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis rocked the look on those yogurt commercials."

"Jamie who?" He'd never watched much television. Old cartoons, mostly.

"What I'm trying to say is I'm not old, dammit."

"I know." The campfire seemed a long way away.

He heard her sigh. "And I usually . . . apart from Ed . . . have great taste in men."

Carol's husband had abused her, and after his death she'd violently bashed his skull in to prevent him becoming a walker.

"I'll take your word for it."

She nudged his shoulder with hers. "I like you. That should be proof."

"Huh."

At the campfire, Maggie and Beth were singing a plaintive, Celtic-sounding song. Daryl noticed Carol watching him as the girls sang about sweethearts that wished them to stay. He saw, too, the worry on her face when the song ended and Rick announced that they had to go into the prison and fight the walkers hand to hand to save ammunition.

"I'll be fine," he said softly.

Carol looked him up and down. "I'd say dirty-sexy."

He hid a smile. Sassy. That was the word for her. "I'll be okay."

They joined the others by the fire. Daryl placed his weapons within reach and gave his poncho to Carol.

She tried to hand it back. "I'm wearing a sweater."

"A thin sweater."

"Says the man whose shirt has no sleeves." Carol scooted close and draped half the poncho over his lap. "Here. We'll share."

The warmth of her arm and thigh put him on edge in a way he'd put to good use the next time he had to shoot an arrow into a walker's eye or stab a knife through one of those bastard's rotting skulls. Displaced frustration, the secret to walker killing. He huffed in reluctant humor.

Carol said in a low voice, "You see T-Dog watching us, too, don't you? He thinks we're up to something under the poncho." She giggled. "Don't laugh. It's making him more suspicious."

Across the fire, T-Dog stared at them with narrowed eyes.

Carol shook with giggles.

"Stop," Daryl said, unable to keep a chuckle from spilling out.

"Can't," Carol said. "I'd have to start first."

On the grass, hidden by the poncho, her fingers brushed his.

Daryl didn't pull his hand away. "I'd say you've started."

Slowly, carefully, her fingertips traced his skin. "What do you want to do about it?"

He closed his hand, linking their fingers together. "Ask me tomorrow."

.

* * *

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A/N: I got hooked on The Walking Dead when AMC showed back to back episodes to build up to Season 3, and Daryl is my all-time favorite character (seems a lot of other people feel the same way, since even though his character was written for the television show, he's going to be introduced into the comic series). I started warming up to Carol at the end of Season 2, and now, at the start of Season 3, I can honestly say I hope the show gives her a romance.

_Better get back_, _could be romantic_, _wanna screw around_, _I'll go down first_, _even better_, and _stop_ are the direct quotes I've borrowed from 301. The song Maggie and Beth sang in the story (and episode) was Parting Glass. Daryl saying he watched old cartoons was a reference to the time he called Lori "Olive Oyl." The curses Daryl and Merle use came from various episodes. Gotta stay in character. ;)

The scene in episode 301 between the Daryl and Carol was short, but so packed with subtext that I couldn't help wanting to flesh it out and create a story around it. I've marked this as a WIP instead of a one-shot because I think there will be other words between the possible sweethearts that will spark future chapters. I hope that readers give a "treat" of a review to tell me they'll look forward to it.

Happy Halloween!

PS, if anyone's interested in a Nightmare Before Christmas romance between Jack and Sally, I have a one-shot called _Restless Hearts_ I'd love you to read. s/2694687/1/Restless-Hearts


	2. Tomorrow Never Comes

That night Daryl dreamed he was eight years old, back on the mountain. School was out for the summer and his brother had come home after three months in Juvie. Merle and Daddy were packing a cooler with beer.

"_I wanna go fishing too." Daryl grabbed one of the cane poles leaning against the cabin wall. "Laundry can wait 'til tomorrow."_

"_Tomorrow never comes, boy," his daddy said. "There's only yesterday and today, so do your damn chores 'fore I take off my belt."_

"_I'll do 'em later. Later comes, don't it?" _

_Merle sniggered. _

_Daddy shot Merle a warning look. "So does the day of reckoning. Forget and you'll do the dance of a thousand devils." _

_Daryl didn't want an ass whupping. He just didn't want to be left alone. Without mama around, the cabin was dark and spooky. "Yes, sir."_

_His daddy hauled the cooler out to the truck._

"_Ain't seen you dance in a while." Merle smirked. "You any better at leapin' away from the belt?"_

"_I'll do my chores," Daryl said._

_Merle punched him on the arm. "Best pray you do."_

Daryl woke to the smell of coffee.

"Good morning." Carol sat on her sleeping bag and held out a white-flecked blue enamel mug. "One of the tower guards was an outdoorsy type. He used a backpacking stove to make coffee. I thought you deserved the first cup."

Daryl raised himself on one elbow and took the mug. "How do you know it was one guard and not all of them?"

"A note taped to an electric brewer said Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Leave my coffeepot alone." She pursed her lips, a giveaway that she was about to tease. "Any chance one of your relatives works for the prison system?"

"If there was, he'd wear an orange vest to pick trash off the side of the road." Daryl sipped the coffee and glanced around. Wisps of fog still hovered over dew-laden grass. "You're up early."

"I wasn't awake half the night standing watch."

He pretended not to see her pointed look. "Nice night for stargazing." He'd missed being able to stand in the open and look for constellations. Not that he'd enjoyed the peace and quiet for long. Walkers along the fence line groaned whenever the breeze carried the scent of living flesh. Daryl had used them to practice hand-to-hand combat; they'd stared like deer at the red glow of his hunting flashlight.

_Arrow jabbed through a walker's eye . . . knife plunged into a rotting brain . . . . _

"Earth to Daryl, come in, Daryl."

He looked at Carol. "What?"

"Is the coffee sweet enough for you?"

For some crazy reason, an old Def Leppard song started playing in his head._ Pour Some Sugar on Me_. Daryl's face grew warm.

Carol said, "I tried to put in enough to give you energy without giving you a sugar high."

He scoffed. "That's a myth. Merle ate a four-pound bag of Dixie Crystals once and all he got was sick. After Daddy gave him a whupping, he told Merle the government lied about sugar to make it easier to ration during the war."

"Your father whipped an ill child?"

Guess it was hard to care about government lies when there wasn't a government anymore. "He waited until Merle stopped puking."

"Big of him."

That was Daddy: big, mean, and merciless. Daryl shrugged. "Stupid hurts."

Carol's eyes flashed. "There's no excuse for physical cruelty."

"No." Not that it stopped people from justifying their actions.

Her gaze lowered to his chest, his covered scars. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He lifted his cup. "Coffee's good. One lump or two?"

"Of sugar?" She made a face. "What am I saying, of course sugar, what else could it be, my lovely lady lumps?" Carol shook her head. "I can't believe I used that expression, and the sugar came from packets. I didn't know it was still sold in lum—er—cubes."

He hadn't known women called parts of their body "lovely lady lumps." Suddenly his cheekbones were trying to burn through his skin. He had to focus on something else. Merle getting a dumbass mullet haircut. "Where's Rick?"

"At the fence gate, planning the assault on precinct thirteen—it was an Ethan Hawke movie. You kind of look like him."

She blushed pink, so Daryl figured she was paying him a compliment. "Thanks."

"I used to watch a lot of movies and television. It made the dreaded ironing go faster." She grimaced. "You can imagine how I hated the cast iron monstrosity Ed forced me to use in camp."

"Yeah." She wasn't the little Suzy homemaker he'd thought she was back when she'd meekly cooked and cleaned for her family and everyone else.

Daryl heard the others stirring. The scent of coffee had acted like an alarm.

"If that smell isn't real don't wake me up," T-Dog said loudly.

Chuckles rang out.

"Guess I'd better help Lori," Carol said.

Daryl held onto the empty mug when Carol reached to take it. "Wait. What I said last night was bullshit."

She dropped her hand. "What do you mean?"

He sat up, needing the cool morning air to clear his head. "Tomorrow is a bullshit word. It's not real. It never comes. Forget I said it." Daryl spoke in a low voice, but Carol recoiled as if he'd shouted.

Her chin came up even as her lips trembled. "If that's the way you want it." She attempted to wrench the mug out of his hand.

He didn't let go. "Ask me later."

She stared at him with stormy blue eyes.

Daryl struggled for words that wouldn't make him sound like a jackass. "Later is real," he said. "It doesn't happen on some perfect schedule, but it isn't bullshit. It means something."

"Does it?"

Hadn't he just told her? "Hell yeah."

Her expression softened.

"Hey! Whatever's going on over there, save it for later," T-Dog called from across the burned out campfire. "I'm in serious need of coffee."

"You need a cup of shut the hell up," Daryl yelled back.

Carol giggled. "I'll fetch coffee, you check your crossbow, or whatever it is that turns you into a lean, mean, fighting machine." She leaned over to kiss his cheek; her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. "I want a later worth saving myself for, okay?"

Daryl nodded. As Carol walked away, he reached for the green plastic tube he'd fashioned into a quiver, dumping the arrows onto his sleeping bag to be counted and re-counted.

.

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A/N: Episode 305 didn't give me much to work with (the preview of the 306 episode with Daryl holding a knife and saying it was Carol's was just a tease), and I'm still hoping Carol will be found (alive, NOT as Sophia 2.0), so I decided to continue from the first chapter, episode 301 and show a little more couple interaction and backstory. The way Daryl (and Carol, by giggling) teased Glenn at the beginning of episode 304 made me think they might have had romance on the brain (as opposed to Daryl being mentally 14), so I wanted to show how that developed.

Special thanks to **bigpinkstork, carylshipper4life, Emberka-2012, fynnsmom, hopelesslydevoted2svu, lalalove-Rae, Laura, Marina Del Pilar, MarionArnold, Rose of the West, SGed, Shipperwolf, tambrathegreat, xXxThe Phantom's RosexXx, and zombieslayer5** for reviewing last chapter. This is my first Walking Dead fanfic, and each review means a lot.


	3. It's Hard Sometimes

Walkers in the prison. Herschel sick. Bodies to bury. There was always something that needed doing, and Daryl was glad to keep busy. He wanted distraction from thoughts that rose up, hungry to bite, like lurkers in the dark.

_What if the group holed up in the prison for more than a few months? What if they decided to live there permanently? Could he stay? _

Long before the world went to hell, Daryl had vowed never to let anyone or anyplace tie him down. The prison was a cage. Beyond jail cells and barred windows, it represented the loss of freedom. He couldn't just tell Rick that he was going hunting and slip off into the woods. Somebody had to unlock doors for him and roll open a fence gate. Daryl understood the precautions. Vigilance kept them alive. It just stuck in his craw, now and then, and tempted him to call out, "Live man walking," when he left the cell block.

The others settled into the prison like wrens nesting in a bluebird box. Daryl stayed aloof on his perch. When it rained for two days straight, the non-solitary confinement set his nerves on edge. He volunteered to take first patrol and skipped breakfast.

Carol noticed.

She brought him a bowl of oatmeal and asked if he wanted to experience the thrill of hanging laundry to dry. He grunted in response. After she hung clothes over the second floor railing, Carol sat down on his mattress to watch him sharpen his knife.

"Did you ever see those Ginsu commercials?" she asked. "I think your knife could cut through wood and remain razor sharp too."

"Mine has to cut through skull."

Carol's eyes danced. "Can it still slice a tomato afterward?"

"Yeah." His lips twitched. "But you wouldn't want to eat it."

"Depends on if you washed it off." She laughed at his expression. "Why is that gross? We eat food that you've killed with the same arrows—"

"—they're not the same. And I purify the others with bleach or fire."

"Oh." Carol looked abashed for a couple of seconds and then she perked up. "Are you almost finished?"

He sheathed his knife.

She said, "Good. You can help me pick dandelions."

His gaze flickered to the windows.

"It's barely sprinkling," Carol said. "You won't melt."

He'd take any excuse to get some fresh air. "Okay."

.

Outside, the field separating the inner and outer prison fences was a swathe of emerald. "I don't see any flowers," Daryl said.

"We're hunting dandelion greens," Carol replied. "You're a country boy. Haven't you eaten them before?"

"No." His mama tried to fix them once and got a beating for it. His daddy said only animals ate weeds.

"Neither have I," Carol said. "I've read about it, though. You eat the leaves in salads or cook them."

He reached for a spear-shaped leaf. "This?"

She took it and ate it. "Yum. Fresh veggies." She picked a dandelion leaf for him to try.

Daryl chewed. The leaf had a slightly bitter taste. "Needs ranch dressing."

She punched him in the arm. "Stop being so ungrateful."

"I'm not." He appreciated being alive, having friends to watch his back and safe place to sleep. He appreciated being able to stand in an open field and pick goddamned dandelions. "It's hard sometimes," he said, "but I appreciate . . . everything . . . I have."

Carol nodded. Her eyelashes were spiky with rain.

He bent to grab more leaves. Women. They couldn't just know something. They had to hear a man say it.

Carol picked dandelion greens beside him, eating a leaf or two as they went along. After they filled a large bowl, she said, "Maybe Axel can find some ranch dressing."

Daryl smiled.

.

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A/N: I've been driving around the writer's block for the last few months, and now I'm finally working my way out of it. I hope that's good news, since I seem to be making this a Season 3 story. To** bigpinkstork, Emberka-2012, FrozenSoldier, fynnsmom, Gone random, .H, hockeydrmr9, jwoods592, Marina Del Pilar, MarionArnold, Rose of the West, tambrathegreat, TriviaQueen and zombieslayer5**, thank you to the moon and back for reviewing last chapter. I'm sorry you had to wait so long for this one.


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